My dad is the smartest man I know. Not only does he know the answers to most Jeopardy questions, he can also build anything, fix anything, sell everything, read people, problem solve, question the status quo, inspire others, crack jokes, remember just about fact every he’s ever heard, debate with the best of them, and invent ingenious products, in theory, every day. When I think of “smart,” he’s my benchmark.

Therefore, when I saw a graphic this past week made up of two frames, the thought of him helped me make sense of what I was viewing. In this graphic, the frame on the left was titled “Knowledge”; it was a simple box with a black outline, filled with random black dots. The frame on the right was titled “Experience”; this second box was exactly like the first with a simple black outline, filled with random black dots, but in this box the dots were all connected by thin black lines.

A simple graphic on the surface. Profound in its meaning for education.

My dad is the epitome of the “Experience” box. Sure, he would do well on Jeopardy because of his great memory for miscellaneous factoids, but it’s because of his life experiences he is so smart. It has been his experiences that connect his dots; his experiences that allow his knowledge to shine. Without a lifetime of opportunities to put his knowledge of math, English, history, language and science to work, these subjects he learned back in the 1950’s would be meaningless. Because he had opportunities in his life to work with the earliest computers, travel the world in the Navy, and experiment with his career, he can seamlessly make connections between seemingly disconnected events. He can find solutions to insurmountable challenges. He can make sense of the senseless.

What does all this mean for education, though?

It means our kids need opportunities to put their knowledge to work, because it’s these opportunities that will become the experiences, creating a generation who can build, fix, sell, question, inspire and invent. Our kids needs these experiences during school – time to volunteer, work part time, build small businesses, invent new programs, solve real problems, grow gardens, take apart old electronics, swim, play, travel. With these experiences, and with us supporting them along the way, our kids will walk out of high school with more than just a box filled with historical dates, comma rules, and memorized facts.

Our teachers can help by providing assignments with real audiences. They can stop with the meaningless, rote homework. Stop with the quiz, after test, after assessment cycle. Stop with the mundane worksheet lessons recycled year-over-year.

As a community, we need to ask our schools to start helping our kids not only fill the box on the left, but also make connections between those dots in order to ensure their success in our interconnected world. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Thanks, Dad, for reminding me that facts are the foundation, but it’s in the experience wherein the wisdom lies.

In the wake of all that transpired this past week, culminating in the Dallas standoff, I found myself thinking about the division in our country. This idea that permeates society, suggesting someone is either pro-one side or pro-the other, but not both. An idea perpetuated by news outlets and social media. An idea that makes it feel as if we have to choose a side -- when we know that neither side, exclusively, feels quite right. Isn’t it okay to care about it all? All at the same time?

This notion of “having to pick sides” left me thinking about education, about the challenges facing our local district and schools that systematically rush us to judgement, forcing us to “pick a side.” Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the issues of this past week can serve to remind us that challenges don’t have to be mutually exclusive?

Let’s take the issue of inter-district transfer students as an example. I hear arguments on both sides of this issue. Arguments suggesting we need to eliminate them. Arguments suggesting we need to keep them. Isn’t it just possible we currently have too many, but still need a small number of these kids throughout all our schools? Too few may result in unintended consequences, and too many has resulted in the challenges we face today. The support from both sides is compelling; however, what if the answer lies somewhere in between?

Let’s take the issue of traffic. We can’t eliminate it all. Our communities’ residents drive. They drive to work. They drive their kids to school. The drive to the grocery store. They own multiple cars and their kids drive, too. And much of our driving time happens when schools are beginning and ending. This causes traffic nightmares. Unfortunately, we are a busy lot with people to see and things to do, so eliminating traffic completely isn’t realistically possible. But do we have to endure a traffic situation that perpetually gets worse year-over-year? Again, I’m suggesting the answer lies somewhere in between “like it was in the 1960’s” and “I’m forced to leave my home an additional thirty minutes earlier in order to get to work on time.”

Let’s look at one more issue -- fundraising. We live in the Los Alamitos Unified School District, a public school system the last time I checked, but time-and-time again we are caught up in the belief that in order for our schools to run and our kids to participate in sports, we need to shell out thousands of dollars. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the fact the we send them to a public school, in-and-of-itself, mean that the education our kids receive is “publically” funded -- in another word, free? That our kids can’t be held from an activity or program because of either an inability or an unwillingness of a family to pay? Again, I’m not suggesting that fundraising be cut completely, but I am suggesting that our district’s fundraising practices be closely re-evaluated. My guess is the fundraising answer lies somewhere between “nothing” and “I’m going to need to take out a second mortgage.”

An answer to our concerns as parents isn’t going to always be black and white. The answers are going to take a willingness on our part to stand on principles and have our voices heard. And our voices aren’t going to argue, offend, degrade, demean, or attack; rather, they will question, discuss and debate.

And somewhere in the middle, with a little give-and-take -- and without having to pick a side -- we’ll find our mutually “inclusive” solutions.

Hot dogs, watermelon, barbeques, apple pie, pool parties, bike parades and fireworks. Nothing is more American than the 4th of July.

Whenever I think about the 4th of July, I wonder, in addition to what time the grill will be ready, what it must have been like back in 1776 during the time of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, a group of like-minded men who were venturing into an independence untested and unprecedented. They didn’t know the future as a certainty. They didn’t know how their Declaration would play out. They didn’t know their own role in how they were changing the world. They only knew they had a problem that needed solving.

From some of the greatest thinkers in American history is a lesson. A lesson from which we can all learn a little something about how to help our kids be their best selves.

The 4th of July brings families together and inevitably brings questions from long-lost Aunt Martha and Uncle Ron targeted at our kids intended to make small talk. I remember these questions from my childhood like they were yesterday. One stands out among the rest: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I even find myself asking this same question of kids when I try to make small talk; it just rolls off my tongue.

This past weekend I spent some time wondering about this question. What is it really asking? What do the adults really want to know? What does it suggest? I came away thinking that the question implies that our kids are destined to work for others. That they will become a cog in a larger machine: doctors who work for hospitals, engineers who work for cities, teachers who work for school districts, managers who work for Fortune 500 companies. Do these “jobs” create fulfillment? Do these “jobs” keep us happy? Or are they jobs that simply require us to take a laundry list of classes to satisfy some requirement established by an unknown entity, so we can work until it’s time to retire?

I got to thinking that the question should be much different. The question should be, “What problem do you want to solve when you grow up?” A question like this gets kids thinking about passion and intent. This questions lends itself to helping our kids discover their educational purpose. Their learning becomes less about completing the laundry list and more about gaining the skills they are going to need to solve their identified problem: doctors who want to cure cancer, engineers who want to build reservoirs for clean water in third world countries, teachers who want to eradicate illiteracy, businessmen who want to build systems to make commerce more readily accessible to everyone.

This is the work that isn’t just a job, work that creates fulfillment and potentially changes the world.

My argument is simply that with a mindset focused on solving problems, we will have kids more engaged in their schooling, more aware of the world around them, more focused on building skills, more interested in gaining interconnected, cross-curricular experience than just memorizing isolated bits of knowledge.

When I talk to people about the future of education, this is the conversation I’m going to start having. This is conversation that will get our schools to start thinking outside of the 200-year-old box of classes in isolation and content for the sake of content, rather than for the sake of intent.

When I think back to Jefferson, Adams and Franklin, I am again struck by the problems they solved. Could they have dreamed up our Declaration of Independence simply by wanting be a writer or a politician “when they grew up”? I don’t think so.

When you sit down for your next barbeque, I hope I’ve given you one more nugget to chew on.

I picked up last week’s News Enterprise to read about our local news, and mixed in with news about charity drives, All-Star youth teams, heat advisories, the LA Fitness controversy, crime, and faith, I ran across the one written by Karen Russell, one of the three incumbents on the Los Alamitos Unified School District Board, writing on behalf of them all, about their intent to seek re-election in November.

I was shocked. Kinda. I just thought a combined 40 years on the Board for them would’ve been enough. Guess I was wrong.

Time to throw my hat in the proverbial ring.

I am seeking election for the Los Alamitos School District Board.

I read Russell’s article closely. In it she simply highlighted their “record.” Her rhetoric was more of the same: national awards, AP scores, modernization, ROP offerings, high standards, A-G completion rates, and safety initiatives. While all of these programs and successes are ones we celebrate throughout our communities, as they keep our kids engaged, inspired, and most importantly, safe, this “record” doesn’t address the issues about which our communities are growing more and more concerned. I ended the article wondering, “But what’s next?”​We are desperately ready to hear discussions about and solutions to the traffic nightmares in Rossmoor. We want to hear honest debates about the inter-district transfers that make up over 30% of our student population. We want to understand where all the money goes, including those dollars raised for individual classrooms, programs, schools, the ever-present district-driven fundraising events and the ubiquitous LAEF -- and why we need another bond measure on the ballot again this election cycle. We want to see teaching practices move into the 21st century and educational equity for all students. We want to give our teachers a voice and hold our administrators accountable for leading their teams with purpose and intent. We want transparency into the sports programs’ operating procedures. We want to discuss options for decreasing the sheer number of kids in our schools, so the schools can become more manageable. We want to see research on the value of summer homework.​I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do have lots of questions. Isn’t that all we really want? A member on the Board who is not afraid to raise the tough questions, hear from our communities, weigh the options, and make decisions in the best interest of us all?

I live in Rossmoor because when my husband and I began having kids we wanted to be part of a great school district. Los Alamitos was that district for us. We moved to this small community district before our kids even started school, and one of them is now at Oak and the other one is at the high school. Crazy how time flies.

This district has served us well, and I want to continue the good work, but I see room for improvement. And rather than rest on our laurels, I’d like to revisit what has made us great and return to a focus on that foundation. We haven’t been great in only the last 15 years; we’ve always been great -- and we’ve been great because we have always been a neighborhood, boutique district. We need, therefore, to continue to move forward, but not forget who we are.

Here’s to Curriculum. Equity. Safety. And a teacher on the board who is focused on why we’re in this business of education -- the kids.

Feel free to contact me via my website at cathylarson.com or via email at mrscathylarson@gmail.com. We are in this together, and it’s time we stand together.Who’s with me? ​

I began working with a few dozen kids this week at my two week writing camp that I run every year at Rush Park. Every day begins with a large circle activity that allows all the kids to get to know each other. I ask a leading question and everyone takes a turn answering it. Activities like this remind me why television programs with children are always so popular -- kids are hilarious!

This week I started our camp with this question: “How often are you asked to write in school?”

I like to get a feel for how much experience and practice these young writers have in probably the only setting where they get to write. The answers this summer were more encouraging than they have been in past summers-- it seems teachers are building more writing into their curriculum -- but I am still amazed at the number of kids who respond with answers like “once a week” and “once a month.”

I’m a teacher and a parent, so I understand the importance of taking everything a child says with a grain of salt. And my neighbor would add that an adult can tell teenagers are lying “when their mouths move.” Regardless, I do trust my campers when they tell me writing doesn’t happen very often. I’m especially saddened when I also hear comments from them about not having the freedom to pick their own topics, not getting help when they get stuck, and being told all the things they’re doing wrong.

I work diligently during camp every summer to help kids experience the joy of writing. We play with language, practice writing strategies, experiment with topics, build fluency and work on authentic voice. In the end, however, what we’ve built is their confidence in knowing they can write -- that writing is nothing to fear.

Even if your little ones aren’t joining us in camp this summer, I wanted to take the time to encourage you to give them this same opportunity. A little time spent this summer encouraging “play” with writing will absolutely pay off during the next school year.

Here are a few ideas to try.

Encourage your child to keep a daily journal. This enables freedom of expression and opportunities to take risks with topic choices. You can even do this electronically with a blog. I like Blogspot through Google. It's easy to setup and easy to post entries. Additionally, get extended family to follow their blog; your kids will love the feedback, and it will encourage even more writing and more posts.

Write stories as a family about your individual days or a family vacation that you then share with each other. You'll be amazed at how different your perspectives can be. And take your writing outside, as this is the one piece of feedback we get from our young writers every year ... they love the freedom of writing in the park.

Write letters to family members or friends who live far away. Write them by hand and by email, as sometimes introducing the electronic media for communication makes it more fun.

Set a timer when writing. This reminds your kids that writing is not about page length or number of sentences; it's about using whatever space is needed to tell the story. You can even do this as a family, and then share your pieces with each other.

Participate in writing contests. When they have a real audience, with the potential for a prize of any kind, you’ll be amazed at how interested in writing they can be.

Get them writing Yelp reviews for restaurants you visit. This will help your kids understand how to write for a specific purpose.

Regardless the ideas you try, please remember that writing is about discovery, fluency, voice, experimentation, and storytelling. Please, whatever you do, do not focus on the conventions. There is plenty of instruction in our schools about conventions. In fact, it is usually this instruction that causes anxiety and reluctance in kids. Imagine writing from your own heart about something personal, only to have someone tell you all the things you did wrong: misspelled words, wrong verb tense, lack of periods. These conventions are important for final pieces, but unnecessarily halt the creative process. Please let your children continue to develop as writers, build on the successes, practice without fear of evaluation, and learn to love the process. This will be more powerful than any properly spelled adjective ... I promise! ​Enjoy your summer and write away!

I spent this last weekend on a soccer field for my daughter’s last tournament of the season. Because the tournament was in Mission Viejo, the families opted to stay near the fields for the four hours between games on both Saturday and Sunday, rather than drive all the way home and then have to turn right back around to return to the field. In the end, I calculated that between the games and the waiting, we had over 20 hours to bond. This left lots of time to discuss lots of topics, but the one that stuck with me this weekend was our discussion about filling the summer now that we are only days away.

“What are you guys doing this summer?” was the question of the weekend. Of course, we discussed everyone’s family vacation plans, the end-of-season soccer party, summer sports camps, and visits to Knott’s Berry Farm. It was the hours of free time the kids are going to have between these planned activities that triggered our most thoughtful discussions, though. How are we going to help fill the kids’ free time with activities and play that eliminate the need for electronics without intruding too much on their time to “be a kid”?

How is that done? Is going completely “black” the answer? Is one hour too little time? Too much? Do they need any? How will they contact their friends? What if I want them to have their phone, so I can get in touch with them? How can I both set a boundary and set a good example at the same time when staying off my phone is just as hard for me as staying off of theirs is for them?

These are tough questions and the questions that got me into trouble last summer when I gave into my kids’ demands only 10 days into the summer. A “blackout” is hard -- for everyone!

This week I thought I’d share a great idea I saw one afternoon (while wasting time on Facebook). Because we’re all so attached to our screens, this proposed solution felt like a great compromise for my family. My kids are in middle and high school, so my rules may be more or less lenient than you’d like, but, nevertheless, this tip helped me envision what I wanted to accomplish and empowered me to create my own set of “Summer Rules.”

My rules are modified from those that I saw that one afternoon, but the brevity, simplicity and direct approach from the sample was what I worked to emulate. I organized my categories by what I want from my own kids, knowing their challenges and propensities, and I encourage you to organize yours by your needs. I’ll share just a taste of our family rules, but know that the full rules have been shared with our kids, printed and posted on the refrigerator.

My hope is that something similar ends up on yours if you’re so inspired. Here goes.

“Summer Rules for Screen Time”

You may earn up to two hours on the computer, your phone/iPad, or TV, as long as all of these requirements have been completed to parental satisfaction. Once completed, you are free to manage your screen time as you see fit.

Health and Hygiene: (1) make your bed, (2) brush your teeth, (3) take a shower, (4) make and eat a healthy breakfast

Academics: (1) read for 45 minutes from a book of your choice

Creativity: (1) make or build something -- Erector set, write a letter to grandparent, bake, woodwork, paint/color, do a puzzle, tinker in the garage, etc

Contribution to the Family: (1) clean one assigned room, (2) ask to help someone with a task, (3) take care of one dog duty

Playtime Outside: (1) ride your bike to the park, take a short run, play with a friend, swim in the pool, play at the beach, go surfing, etc

Note: All electronics are turned in to mom or dad before going to bed.

My hope is for you to enjoy your summer in an old-fashioned way. My hope for you is to be active and nurture friendships. My hope for you is to build memories.

This summer you are not going to spend all your time watching someone else’s life. You’re going to create your own.​God, help us all.

For the past couple years, you can find my family on most Friday nights at Macaroni Grill for Happy Hour. This tradition started one night when the families from my daughter’s soccer team were looking for a place to go for dinner after a Friday night practice, because no one felt like going home to cook dinner. We all landed at, what all the kids now lovingly call, Mac and Cheese Grill.

This tradition is something her soccer team has continued all these Friday’s later. It’s where we continue to meet with families who no longer play on her soccer team and get to know new families who join each year.

This past weekend was no exception.

Because I’m a teacher, as are several other parents, the conversation often turns to education. This weekend turned to teacher salary and the raises districts all over Orange County are negotiating for teachers this year.

From our hour-long conversation, one comment from a parent stuck with me. He was arguing the merits of teacher raises and amid his many cogent arguments mentioned, “We need to pay well so we can get good teachers.”

This idea has been percolating now for a few days. It’s a ubiquitous line bantered about any time teacher salary is discussed. I began to wonder this weekend -- what do we mean by “good” and is this argument true?

Let’s start with “good.” What do we mean by a “good” teacher? Sure, teachers have a set of teaching standards by which they are evaluated, the CSTP (California Standards for the Teaching Profession). But how do these standards translate to the day-in and day-out in the classroom?

In addition to the standards, I might argue a “good” teacher must, first-and-foremost, love kids. More money doesn’t change this. I might also add a “good” teacher must love their content. More money doesn’t change this, either. From an administrative perspective, a “good” teacher might mean the teacher is coachable. Does more money change or influence this? I think not.

I challenge you to think about what you think makes for a “good” teacher and ask yourself if more money changes any of those key traits.

During this Friday night’s discussion, we tried to equate teaching and teacher salaries to what I call the “real world.” It felt like an exercise in futility. Industry is driven by results -- you perform, get performance reviews, and earn performance increases, or you get fired. Unfortunately, education isn’t driven by results; both “good” and bad teachers are contractually paid the same. Should ALL teachers be rewarded with an 8 or 10 percent pay increase this year -- just because?

Let’s go back to my friend’s claim that “We need to pay well so we can get good teachers.” I’m going to disagree. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a teacher and would love a big raise, but I think his claim is a fallacy.

I argue that teachers teach because they are called to it. Most teachers are teachers because it’s their passion, because to become a teacher isn’t easy. It’s not a profession that you can just fall into. To earn a credential requires lots of jumping through hoops; it’s an intentional decision. And we don’t have a teacher shortage in California, so many young people are already deciding to teach. Why is this? Could it be that teaching offers something no other career can? Something more than money can buy? How about benefits. Job security. Holiday breaks. Step raises year-over-year regardless performance. Stipends for work above and beyond the contract day. A quality of life that contractually requires a teacher to work only 185 out of 365 days of every year.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I love teachers, and a “good” one can inspire kids to greatness. But I’m not sure pay is the answer to ensuring our kids get one of the “good” ones.

What I wish is that more parents demanded results. What I wish is that more parents spoke up about teachers who cause detriment to our kids. What I wish is that more parents got involved in more ways than just writing more checks.

What I wish is that some of that money going to raises was spent on kids, because, let’s not forget, that’s the business we’re in.​I don’t claim to know or have a silver bullet for “good” teaching, but I do know that money isn’t the answer. ​

As a kid growing up in Indiana, my family looked to Memorial Day weekend as the start of summer. Our family, immediate and extended, traveled 45 minutes from Fort Wayne to Crooked Lake in Columbia City, IN, where two sets of grandparents owned small lakefront cottages. We went up several times a year “to the lake,” but Memorial Day weekend was special. This was the weekend we spent three days with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. This was where I learned the joy of Euchre, water skiing and pontoon boats. But I also learned that Memorial Day isn’t complete without car racing -- the Indy 500 to be exact. It was Indiana after all.

Therefore, this past weekend with my own immediate family, we sat down and watched a little car racing in the name of nostalgia. We landed on the Monaco Grand Prix. The race was actually pretty exciting, full of inclement weather and plenty of crashes. However, what stood out most to me was the phrase the commentators repeated multiple times as the drivers were crossing the finish line: “Race to the finish.” In context, the commentators were discussing an exciting moment in the last few minutes of the race when one driver passed a car on the last lap and only seconds before the finish line.

Their discussions about this last-minute surge and advice to “race to the finish” reminded me of my own daughter’s participation in the Los Alamitos All-District Track Meet this last week. My daughter represented Oak in the sixth grade 200m sprint. She does what many kids and even professional athletes do at a finish line -- she eased up. We’ve all seen those highlights programs where athletes start celebrating a little too early and end up losing the win. My daughter maintained her third place finish through the finish line, but had she “raced to the finish,” pushing at the end with just a momentary burst of everything she had left, she could have potentially overtaken the first and second place finishers.

In both cases, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Los Al Track Meet, I was left thinking about that “race to the finish” and what it means for education as we round that final turn before the end of the school year. For some, the end of this school year means just promotion to another grade level. For others, it means a promotion to another school. For others still, it means actual graduation from K-12 education.

Regardless the next step for each student, they all need to remember to “race to the finish.”

These end-of-the-school-year races aren’t for first place. They, rather, are races to finish strong. For your elementary kids, this might mean mastering their Special Person’s Day song and dance. For your middle school kids, this might mean finishing end-of-year culminating projects. For your high school kids, this probably means finals. We need to be sure to remind our kids that this is no time to ease up on the gas. They need to continue to work hard, fight to achieve, and remain diligent.

Because the end is where character is built.

When we’re tired, worn out, discouraged, or unmotivated, it’s those who persevere that shine. And those who shine feel accomplished. And through that accomplishment, character, self worth and confidence grows.

The finish isn’t an end, then. Rather, it’s a building block, and the stronger the block the more solid the foundation on which a life can be built.

Nike lives by 11 guiding principles, their maxims: “It is our nature to innovate,” “The consumer decides,” “Evolve immediately,” and “Do the right thing” are just four of them. You can Google the rest; that’s how I found them all. Not only are they interesting, but they inspired me to take action.

I led a professional development meeting with my English department this week at school. The meeting was to refine our curriculum and embed more 21st century learning. We realized we couldn’t start this discussion until we’d decided on our English department’s maxims first.

So we set out to do just that. And we got to them by asking two guiding questions: “What are the fundamental principles that drive our instruction?” and “What type of English student do we want graduating from our department?” Honestly, how can a department of any discipline make decisions about end goals, assessments, mastery, homework, summer assignments, or even daily lessons without knowing what they stand for.

Philosophically who they are as teachers. And, most importantly, who they want the kids to become as learners and citizens of the world when the graduate.

As our brainstorming and planning day came to an end, I began to reflect on the experiences of my own children. I wonder if their teachers are clear on their purpose. If their teachers know the type of student they are trying to create. If their teachers talk about the driving principles of their discipline. Sometimes I wonder. When my kids come home with worksheets, packets, rote memorization tasks, and mindless regurgitation, I wonder if they feel as disengaged from the content as the work feels from real life.

I challenge you to ask, “What type of adult do your kids’s teachers’ activities intend to create?”

As a district, Los Alamitos is very clear about its brand. We ignite unlimited possibilities for students. We embrace the whole child. We build well-rounded students with a focus on activities, arts, athletics and academics. But how does this trickle down to each school and then, most importantly, into the classroom -- where the real work happens. It’s not enough to stand for the “what” without also building the “how.”

As a parent, I want us all to start asking the questions that get our district teachers to start asking questions of their practice. Why this assignment? Why this task? What’s the purpose? What type of adult is this activity building? I also realized during my meeting this week that I want to more clearly identify the maxims for my family. What do we stand for? How do we make the tough decisions? How do we stay focused on what matters? As I type, I think about phrases I say over-and-over to my kids: “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” “Effort unlocks your potential,” “Your level of success is completely up to you,” and “Find your own purpose.” I’m sure all of you have phrases that bounce off your walls on a regular basis, because as parents these are the principles we use to build our little adults. The same needs to apply in the classroom.

If every teacher worked to build little scientists or thinkers or innovators or independent learners -- whatever the courses’ maxims -- our kids would be engaged. They would be excited about their learning. They would be inspired to find their path.

It’s time for teaching and learning to be purposeful and meaningful every day with every assignment -- because the world can be changed one maxim at a time.​Just do it.

A group of families, including my own, spent this past weekend in Santa Ynez camping, barbequing, golfing, enjoying each other’s company, wine tasting and running a half marathon. The weekend couldn’t have been better. The parents found time to relax, and the kids spent time being kids: catching snakes, walking to the alpaca farm, playing bocce ball, and roasting s’mores.

The weekend reminded me that summer is coming. The lazy days of summer wherein our engines are recharged doing those things that inspire us and give us purpose. This may include traveling, hanging by the pool, hiking with the family, or even engaging in new hobbies. What it shouldn’t include is pressure from our schools to complete summer homework.

Summer homework is like requiring an adult taking a two week vacation to spend some time every day of that vacation reading and writing reports for a client who expects a full proposal or accounting the first morning they arrive back at work. Has this ever happened to an adult? Absolutely. Once in a blue moon. But it doesn’t happen at every vacation, and I can’t imagine an entire career rests on this first morning back. So why do we expect this of our kids?

Summer needs to be a time for our children to follow a passion, get an internship, create a business, play a sport, develop new skills, volunteer or pick up a book for pleasure and enjoyment. I know that’s what I do, and I know that’s what most teachers do.

But this doesn’t mean our minds are inactive.

Active minds are important in the summer to prevent the “summer slide,” but that activity doesn’t need to be studying environmental science, world history or even the “The Odyssey.” Activity comes in the form of creativity, engagement, creation and innovation. Activity comes from team building, group play and problem solving. Activity comes from participating in the local library’s summer reading program, setting goals and discovering new authors.

What activities hamper real growth and stall passion? Rote memorization and pages of outlines. The exact kinds of activities the summer homework requires. Rather than read chapters in a science book, our kids need to go out and plant a straw bale garden. Rather than complete history outlines, what if they instead traveled to an historic city or museum. Rather than read literature written in 700 B.C., how about they try to write their own short stories or rediscover a love of reading -- actually find a genre that gets them excited about reading again.

Summer should be a time to refuel for the upcoming race. Adults who work year-round jobs would kill for the concept of the old-fashioned summer. So why are we stripping our kids of those carefree days that build the foundation for nostalgia? Let’s allow our children the benefit of stepping out of the rat race for just a few months, in order for them to be able to tackle it head on with a full tank of gas come September. They’ll all be better for it. ​And isn’t that the point?